If there is one thing about the original that the Silent Hill 2 Remake nails, it’s the atmosphere. Its changes to the original Silent Hill 2 are mostly minor, consisting of simple puzzle remixes and narrative rearrangements. These serve to offer a new experience to returning players, and to preserve the pacing of his slightly expanded story. The broad strokes of both are untouched, but the finer details are ever-so-slightly tailored to fit the new format.
But these Silent Hill 2 Remake leaves the ambiance of the original game basically untouchedAnd to great effect. The original Silent Hill 2Its sound design, dreamlike voice acting, and everything else is left perfectly intact. The same extends to one of the most important mechanics of the PlayStation 2 game, which is executed about as well as anyone could ask for in the PS5 remake.
Silent Hill 2 remake gets the fog and darkness right
You can barely see what’s in front of you
All things considered, The Silent Hill 2 Remake’s rendering of the fog that blankets the titular city is perfectly fitting. When the protagonist Jacob walks outside, the whole of Silent Hill is covered in thick, impenetrable fog. It’s a tool to turn the screws on the game’s next jump scare – players can’t see what’s coming at them until the game wants them to, which often leaves them with only seconds to prepare until a monster is upon them. But the fog is also thematically important, and the remake’s excellent visuals help get those themes across.
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metaphorically, The poor visibility represents the “Misty“Mental state caused by the main character’s trauma and repressed memories. The very fact that he decided to pursue a letter from his late wife means that his judgment is clouded. But Jacob also struggles to remember the timeline of his wife’s illness, and seems shocked when presented with a revelation from the outside world. His fellow Silent Hill diners, Angela and Eddie, seem to have similar symptoms; Angela can’t remember why she believes her mother is in Silent Hill, and Eddie barely even knows how he got there.
Inside, the fog of Silent Hill is replaced by darkness. This isn’t the typical sort of video game darkness that can be easily dispelled by turning up the gamma correction; Players really come to rely on Jacob’s flashlight to see what’s around them. And his flashlight is weak; It doesn’t have any effect at all unless Jacob is uncomfortably close to something that it can reflect off of. The result is that Players often need to wander blindly into rooms they can barely see from the outsideWhich can lead them straight into the clutches of monsters lying in wait.
The darkness serves as a substitute for the original Silent Hill 2s fixed camera angles, which similarly prevent players from seeing what is ahead until the precise moment the game developers want them to. Finally, in conjunction with the fog, The darkness helps faithfully recreate the original Silent Hill 2s terrifying atmosphere.
The Mist of Silent Hill was originally due to technical limitations
It has since become an iconic part of the series
sad, The only reason Silent Hill is shrouded in fog is due to technical limitations encountered by the original gameReleased for the PlayStation in 1999. With the console’s poor RAM, it was almost impossible to avoid enemies and objects suddenly popping into frame as the player explored the city. Thus, the developers blanketed its outdoor areas in fog, and dimmed the lights on some of its indoor areas so that pop-in would not be as noticeable.
Technical specifications had improved by the time the sequel came out on the PS2, but the damage was done – The first game was praised for its innovation in using technical limitations to create a creepy atmosphereAnd Silent Hill would forever be known as a city shrouded in fog. It has since been a presence in every mainline series entry to date, even when later games left the town of Silent Hill behind.
It’s strange to think that what started out as a disguised technical limitation eventually became such an iconic part of the series that a top-down remake, coming out over 20 years later on infinitely more powerful hardware, had to spend time and effort recreating it. it. Even so, limitations are often a source of creativity, and many incredible creative decisions have come about by chance. If anything, it’s a testament to that Silent Hill 2 Remake that it is not tried by its lack of constraints to increase the rendering distance, thereby ruining the atmosphere that the original game has worked so hard to create.